


Meet Cute

by BuddyWritesFic



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Backstory, Engagement, F/M, Swordfighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuddyWritesFic/pseuds/BuddyWritesFic
Summary: Fulgrim's first betrothal.
Relationships: Fulgrim/OFC
Kudos: 7





	Meet Cute

General Tali DuPont, The Mad Bitch, second daughter of Executive DuPont and Executive Consort Barrick, Heiress to the Mines of Black Crossing and Commander of the Western Forces was a stocky, square-set young woman who wore her light hair braided with the bones of fallen enemies, in the military fashion.

She wasn’t actually mad. If anything, she was fairly clearheaded. But she was brutal, and relentless, and her soldiers crushed clan and barbarian alike beneath the fury of their blades and bolters, so the name stuck.

It had been two years since her debut at court. As yet, she remained unwed. None of the many suitors who came had passed her nuptial challenge: a duel to first blood.

She had not been especially impressed with Fulgrim on their first meeting. He was large, but a freight cart was large. He was pretty, but a doll was pretty. She did not need a freight cart or a doll. His province had prospered recently, if the auditors were to be believed. For this reason and no other, he was granted the privilege to court her.

“Can you best me?” she had asked him. “Will you stand where fifty men and women have fallen?”

He had smiled and bowed to her. “I would be remiss not to try, sweet lady. I am considered a passable swordsman.”

“I hope you are, Fulgrim, son of No One,” she had said. “You have little else to recommend you.”

Now they stood on the dueling grounds. The lady had chosen the venue, as was her right. Fulgrim had practiced for months on different terrain to hone his technique. Steep cliffsides, blazing-bright salt flats, toxic pits where the air could choke a man. In the winter, he had danced on the ice of the Glow River, stepping away as it crumbled neath his feet.

General DuPont had deemed that they should duel in the ruins of an ore processing plant at the edge of the wastelands.

It was _very_ ruined, as these things went. Several former ceilings stacked in piles on what had once been the ground floor. Fulgrim had to crouch to fit through the narrow passageways in the rubble. There wasn’t even room to swing his sword.

General DuPont smiled at him placidly. The officiant blew his whistle.

She disappeared in the ruins before he could strike. He advanced on nothing. He listened for her footsteps, but they were hidden in a great cacophony. Wherever she was, she must have been throwing things around the plant, using the ruined machinery as gongs and drums to cover the sound of her feet.

A sword jabbed out behind him, and he barely dodged in time. Then another clanging chorus, then a sword jab from the right.

She never moved her body out of cover when she attacked, never offered an opening. Only her blade, and only for a fraction of a second at a time. It was most provoking.

She struck from below, nearly clipping his leg. He danced away, but the floor gave out beneath him, and his ankle twisted badly in the fall.

“Ah!” He scrabbled in the wreckage, pinned by the tight space and the shifting, fragile floor.

She emerged from cover now, smiling, her eyes bright as she closed in to attack.

He whipped a rock at her head with a flick of his wrist.

“Blood!” he cried when it hit.

She touched her hand to her forehead, and it came away red. She laughed from deep in her chest.

“You’ll need new robes for the wedding,” she said. “My grandfather’s will never fit you!”


End file.
